D&D (2024) D&D Monster Manual (2025)

[Micah Sweet]

If it gets you to stop making bogus claims with no evidence to fuel your own personal grievances, then yes, it is.

I don't see my claims as bogus, obviously. I also try not to be insulting in my discourse.

 

[Micah Sweet]

No it tried to change the past for me, that is why I rejected it.

Fair enough. I can see your point of view, even if I don't share it.

 

[the Jester]

Here's a question. Has there EVER been a Ranged Brute?

Depends on what you mean by ranged brute. If you mean something that is more effective at range than in melee, yes, absolutely- 4e had an entire category of monsters like this: artillery. The best example (which, unfortunately, doesn't have an exact equivalent in 5e) was the arbalaster (there's a clockwork rough equivalent in MMM). But you could have archers of all kinds, rock-throwing giants, flame-hurling cambions, etc.

A few more examples (again, not necessarily from 5e- which just tells me that there may be flaws in the selection of monsters in 5e) would include arrowhawks, some dragons, manticores, the pyrolisk, some spellcasters, corruption corpses, flameskulls, spitting snakes, acid spiders, etc.

 

[dave2008]

Fair enough. I can see your point of view, even if I don't share it.

Same. Honestly, I weave my lore (or official lore changes I like) into existing lore as much as I can to make what I consider a coherent story. That was why it took me until 4e to except the blood war. We finally got some official lore that made sense to me and I could work with in my story.

 

[Faolyn]

I have mixed reactions to this.

The blink dog: Dislike the removal of keen hearing and smell. This change really seems to me to be one of many that are basically designed for VTT play at the expense of flavor and world building elements.

Moving the teleport to a bonus action, I really like.

The bugbear: I HATE changing goblinoids to Fey. This is a change for no reason that I can see. It is one of the only places where WotC is actually inserting lore, but it's intrusive in that it changes long established lore in a way that has mechanical consequences. Yuck.

I haven't read everyone's responses to this, so sorry if this has been gone over already.

While I can see why some people (like you) may not like the change, I think it's pretty cool. It takes them back to their roots as fairy tale monsters. But more importantly, D&D has always had too many humanoids and it never made any sense to me. Like, did you really need hobgoblins and orcs, or goblins and kobolds, or bugbears and ogres? It's just a holdover from the days before people thought to just give monsters more hit dice or class levels. It makes the ecology of the world ridiculous. Especially when you consider that hobgoblins are supposed to be these great (and lawful, therefore organized) conquering warriors and yet how often is that reflected on the map? As fae, they can mostly live in the Faewild until they make raids through a convenient portal to the Prime.

I mean, I can see how it's annoying that they've been changed to fae because then they can't be affected by a lot of spells, but, well, to me, that's an added bonus.

Removing Brute and Surprise Attack are changes I don't see the purpose in- the poster of the video theorizes that it's to remove passive, always on abilities, but I don't see the point of this. Adding the Abductor trait is... okay, again, why? What does that have to do with bugbears and their traditional depiction? Feels like another change for the sake of change to me. The weird damage on the hammer is just weird, and seems very arbitrary.

The bullywug: I like moving its ability to jump to a bonus action. I don't like the removal of swamp camouflage; again, loss of flavor for the sake of VTT integration is not something I care for.

Also, I am not a fan of giving them a rapier in place of a spear. That, again, removes traditional flavor in place of a weapon that is, in my opinion, kind of advanced technology for a bullywug.

The mage: Medium or Small is good. Improved hps seems misguided to me; mages should be squishy. Arcane Burst is... God damn do I hate this ability. It removes any tactical advantage from closing in on the mage, is an ability that pcs can't get, and is an example of the overuse of force damage in the new rules.

I'm okay with the changes to the spell list, given the inclusion of Arcane Burst, but I'd rather have the old version of the mage. I think the notion that we wouldn't see Greater Invisibility cast in combat is pretty wild; with no other real concentration options for the mage, it seems like an obvious choice to me for round 1.

I do love that they include Counterspell and Shield in the reactions section; I've been doing that for years.

The sprite went from a "not great in combat" creature to a "gonna hit and gonna hurt" type of creature. I think we need more stat blocks for things that aren't great in combat. I also definitely prefer the old sprite's sleep poison for the sake of tradition.

The worg: Not a fan of the changes. Again, removing the keen senses is... I don't see how it's an improvement.

The change to the bite from maybe proning you to granting advantage on the next attack against you seems weird. I mean, wolves (etc) taking creatures to the ground is a real thing, and I think it's a shame to lose it. Again, there is a subtraction of flavor in favor of simplicity. I don't need that, but I dunno, maybe the majority of dms do.

The warhorse: I'm glad that Trampling Charge moved to the Hooves action; it makes it harder to miss how it works when running it. The reducing of the damage, I like less so, but you know.

The bullywug bog sage is cool, though I do wish it still had the Swamp Camouflage ability.

FInally, he talks about the shambling mound without having access to the new stat block. I like everything he said here except for the addition of lightning damage. On a variant version of the SM? Absolutely, very cool. But for the baseline creature, which hasn't ever had such an ability? Meh.

I guess maybe a big thing for me is that changing stat blocks so much really effects the tactical setup of encounters from older adventures. I fondly remember a bullywug and titanic toad adventure I wrote where the bullywugs' swamp camouflage was a key element in, well, probably at least four encounters. I know you can arbitrarily throw in the equivalent of it with advantage based on the terrain or whatnot, but having it explicitly in the monsters' stat blocks is (I feel) far better.

Anyway, those are my thoughts... I continue to be not really impressed with the overall direction of the new rules, even if they seem mechanically sound.

 

[Faolyn]

I really dislike changes that invalidate decades of gameplay, though. If a monster that was always susceptible to charm person suddenly isn't, what if your campaign had seen major events played out where using charm person on that monster was a major plot point? If you aren't going to restart your game because of a new ruleset or edition- and I'll die on the hill that an edition change shouldn't force a reset- then edition changes should be made with that sort of situation in mind and changes to monsters should be made judiciously. You can update mechanics and change stat blocks in ways that don't run that risk.

Well, it won't, because nobody is saying that you have to change your existing campaign's lore.

All it's saying is, if you're starting a game using this ruleset, here's their lore for the monsters.

 

[dave2008]

Also, this Fire Elemental is an interesting change on their damage. Burning does less damage now (1d4 per turn instead of the 1d10) and the elemental no longer particularly punishes fighters by hurting them multiple times. Instead, it has an aura that hits EVERYTHING around it.

What I like is that "burning" is general rule now, so I can just saying burning for any fire damage if I want without having to explain what it does or how to end the effect. I really appreciate that!

 

[dave2008]

Depends on what you mean by ranged brute. If you mean something that is more effective at range than in melee, yes, absolutely- 4e had an entire category of monsters like this: artillery. The best example (which, unfortunately, doesn't have an exact equivalent in 5e) was the arbalaster (there's a clockwork rough equivalent in MMM). But you could have archers of all kinds, rock-throwing giants, flame-hurling cambions, etc.

A few more examples (again, not necessarily from 5e- which just tells me that there may be flaws in the selection of monsters in 5e) would include arrowhawks, some dragons, manticores, the pyrolisk, some spellcasters, corruption corpses, flameskulls, spitting snakes, acid spiders, etc.

Except in 4e artillery monsters were specifically not Brutes. They had fewer hit points, but high AC, and higher accuracy. Just the opposite of 4e brutes with high HP, low AC, low accuracy, & significantly more damage. So no, those are not examples of ranged "brutes." The just examples of ranged monsters/npcs, not the same thing.

 

[Faolyn]

Changing Goblinoids to Fey creatures is not new. I think they already did that in Wild Beyond the Witchlight. Worgs being Fey is new, but I guess 5E never had the "magical beast" category 3E did.
I personally do not like it because with that logic, half the Monster Manual should be fey. Kobolds are also based on german miner tales, and heck, Dragons are from folklore too, they too should be fey? Shouldn't Elves be fey then too?

D&D's kobolds are a heck of a lot different than folkloric kobolds in appearance and biology. Even in the earliest editions, they were scaly dog-things, and they've moved on since then. While hobgoblins are quite a bit difference in appearance from their folkloric counterpoints, goblins and bugbears are much, much closer.

Dragons may be from folklore, but they were never fey in the D&D sense. If anything, they would be demons or particularly vicious animals (European dragons) or nature-based elementals (Asian dragons).

Elves have had fey ancestry for a while now, but D&D's fey are from Tolkien, not mythology.

Honestly, as long as they do not visually redesign them too much, I don't really care, since it will not impact the miniatures being made.
The Bullywug change to fey is the only one I am iffy about, to me a rather savage, swamp-dwelling primitive species who worship Demons using rapiers - the making of which would require advanced blacksmithing techniques - just does not feel like it works. I assume this is again, due to Witchlight, where Bullywugs re-imagined on the Frog courier/runner from Alice in Wonderland are found in the Feywild, but even withing this new system this does not gel with the Bullywug Bog Sage who based on the stat block goes more with the savage demon-worshipping Bullywug image.

I am more curious in seeing the new artwork.

I think the statblock said "insectile rapiers," I think, so I'm assuming they're actually giant insect stingers, or or long, thin tree branches tipped with a giant insect stinger rather than a sword made of actual steel.

(Mind, I'm not getting this book, so if they actually show them with metal rapiers, I won't know or care.)

 

[Micah Sweet]

Well, it won't, because nobody is saying that you have to change your existing campaign's lore.

All it's saying is, if you're starting a game using this ruleset, here's their lore for the monsters.

To me, a change in lore (as opposed to an expansion of it) really should be accompanied by an edition change. That's how they've (pretty much) always done it, and shifting it in the middle like this extremely off-putting to me.